


Sunshine

by moegan



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Luke Hemmings - Freeform, Protective Luke, Street Fighter AU, Why do I do this to myself, aka the biggest dweeb but he's so brooding, idk just read the story, listen okay just read to find out
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2015-08-01
Packaged: 2018-04-11 03:01:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4418567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moegan/pseuds/moegan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>luke is a puzzle belle intends on figuring out. what happens when she knows too much?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> so, this is just me moving my fanfic over here now that i have an ao3 account!! basically a chapter per day, or every day i can get to the computer!! i hope you guys like it, don't be shy to comment/review and talk to me over on my tumblr!! [lilhemmo.tumblr.com](http://lilhemmo.tumblr.com/)

**_2:17 p.m._ **

**_Tuesday, August 19 th, 2014_ **

 

The heels she's wearing are both loud and uncomfortable. They clack against the tile flooring of the school hallway and they make her thighs cramp. Her head ducks into the open space of her locker, pulling out what she needs as she tries to stay out of the blatant eye of the high school population.

 

"Hey!"

 

She squeaks, putting her hand over her heart as she closes her eyes. "H-Hey," she responds, looking back up as she closes the locker back. "What's got you all shaken up?" the blonde chuckles, reaching out to steady her friend's shoulder. "Nothing, Melody," she shakes her head, "What did you need?" Melody sighs and then smiles, "Are you coming to the party this Friday?" She shrugs, looking up from where she's organizing her books so they're settled correctly in her arms. "Huh?"

 

The petite blonde knocks her hip to the side as she places a manicured fingertip to her friend's bicep, "I asked if you were coming with the crew to Jessica's party on Friday. You know Jess throws the best parties, there's always tons of booze and hot guys from that county across the bridge." Licking her lips, the dirty blonde shrugs, shaking Melody's hand off her arm, "I don't think I can this weekend, Melody...I have a project due for Professor Peters on Monday, and you know how he is. Maybe next time? Parties happen all the time, right?"

 

Stomping her feet, Melody pouts and crosses her arms over her chest, looking frustrated in the immature way she somehow manages to pull off. "You haven't come to a single party since that one time over Spring Break, Belle! You can't be so innocent your whole life, you have to dip into a little rebellion every now and again." Belle shifts her weight uncomfortably, feeling a strange emotion crawling through her veins that she wishes she could just tear out like threads one by one from her skin. "You practically have every virginity known to man," Melody scoffs, tossing her head of blonde curls back as she laughs obnoxiously.

 

"I'm just busy," Belle manages to push from her lips thickly. "Next time I'll come, okay?" She smiles forcefully, swallowing the lump in her throat. Belle is sure that her expression resembles that of a grimace instead of a grin, but Melody doesn't seem to notice. She snorts, tossing a few stray hairs over her shoulder to fall in place with the rest. "Next time, next time, right," she mutters, shaking her head as she draws out the last word. As Melody leans forward and squeezes her around the shoulders, she mumbles into Belle's ear rather harshly, "You're not doing so great at this whole 'fitting in' thing, are you? We don't want a repeat of last year."

 

As Belle pulls back, she forces an even more convincing smile to tug up the corners of her lips. "I'll see you tomorrow, Mel." She gulps before pushing herself away from the situation, the bile rising into her throat at Melody's controlling ways sending her head into a fog. _Stop, stop this. Stop feeling like this,_ she chants to herself as she walks down the hallway. _Don't feel, don't feel._ She turns on the heels of her boots and walks down the hallway, trying her hardest to stay out of view. Although, with her status and friend-base, that is somewhat difficult. Her hands brush the sides and hips of strangers to keep them out of her way, muttering apologies as she pushes through the thinning crowd of high school teenagers.

 

Managing to slip into the door of the Creating Writing class she takes as the last period of the day, Belle takes the seat at the front of the room that screams her name every day. She's never been one to take up the back row of desks, her eyes aren't too good and she can't deal with all the whispers floating around her. As she sets down her bag, she pulls out a blue binder and flips it open to a blank page. When she looks up, Belle sees that in Mr. Ellis' scrawled script are the words in all caps: HAIKU COMPETITION. YOU HAVE TEN MINUTES TO WRITE. WINNER GETS A HIGH FIVE. GO, GO, GO!

 

Mr. Ellis would be the one to do this to try and make the bland Tuesday a little more intriguing. Monday in sixth period was spent learning about haikus; the moans and groans about certain hatred for poetry echoed in the room, only making Ellis smile wider. For Belle, though, haikus came easy. In her spare time, songwriting was a silent love of her own, and haikus were almost the same as writing a verse of a song. She rests her head on her arm as she writes the first thing that comes to mind when her thoughts begin swirling.

_"I cannot find it;_

_Peaceful state of mind I crave;_

_I want to find it."_

 

Belle shrugs to herself and sighs, knowing she can do better, but the miniscule poem took little effort and it'll only be a participation grade so she isn't much worried about it. _Decent_ , she thinks, chewing on her lower lip as she hears the echoing of the monotonous scratching of lead on paper. As the brunette waits, she finds herself absentmindedly picking at the garishly pink nail polish Melody forced her into buying the past weekend, insisting that it brought out the green in her hazel eyes. How pink nail polish can bring out a color in someone's eyes, Belle will never know. But even so, Melody seems to have luck in the fashion world, and it keeps her happy if Belle does what she says, so there's no reason to stray from following orders.

 

"All right, class," Mr. Ellis pops up from behind his desk, a bright smile tugging up the corners of his lips. "Ten minutes is up, time to share!"

 

Even though the entire class lets out a collective groan, Belle smiles to herself, pulling at a lock of hair. She's always loved Mr. Ellis, mostly because he shows no favoritism like other teachers, and otherwise because he's always cheerful and makes class time as fun as possible. He prefers talent over popularity any day, and he has no problem in telling the world. That's another thing about Mr. Ellis-he's brave, Belle needs a little brave in her life every once and a while.

 

"So, like," Wesley Adams, captain of everything, raises his hand, "Do we have to read these out loud? Like...all of us?" Ellis sighs, trying to bite back either a smirk or a smile, Belle may never know. "Of course, Wesley, yes. That's what: 'time to share' means! Poetry is meant to be read aloud and we're not in a time nor place where we're to dishonor the arts, am I right?" Everything that Ellis has just said goes into one of Wesley's ears and out the other, a completely bewildered expression covering his square face. Ellis finally gives into an eye roll and crosses his arms over his chest, "I'm just going to call you up in ABC order, you read your haiku to the class like the little robot children you've been raised to be, everyone claps as if they actually care about what you have to say, and then you sit down. If I like yours, you win. Easy peasy, right?"

 

Belle smiles at the snarky attitude of her favorite teacher, trying to bite it back but her lower lip curls far too fast for her teeth to take it captive. As she tucks her hair behind her ear she notices Ellis smiling back at her, and suddenly she feels a twinge in her heart. Under his breath, Wesley grumbles about the stupidity about the assignment, but Belle could care less. This is one of the classes she can actually feel accomplished about herself, as if she belongs and isn't an outcast taken in by someone who doesn't actually desire her opinion. Mr. Ellis brings that to the table, he always makes sure to tell her how well she's done, whether it's pulling her aside or telling the whole class.

 

As she looks up, Belle sees Wesley's eyes on her and suddenly she tears away her smile, knowing that outside the classroom is the only place that she can disagree with him. As he stands up per Mr. Ellis's calling, Belle blows out a breath and rolls her eyes, feeling her chest depress, her shoulders slumping. Wesley manages to mumble out a poem about football, but the syllables are all wrong. _Can he not even count to seven?_ Belle asks herself, tapping her fingers against the inside of her thigh. Ashley Baker gives a short synopsis of dancing, Destiny Daniels says a bit about feminism, Harry Francis speaks of aliens...

 

"Hemmings," Ellis calls, looking at his roll sheet.

 

"Can I just take a docked grade?" the gruff voice speaks from the back of the room, exactly where Belle was trying to avoid. She scoffs to herself, knowing that people like whoever Hemmings is are the reason that she likes her seat at the front of the classroom. She refuses to turn around, though, like everyone else. The last thing Belle wants to do is give the smart aleck the attention he's vying for.

 

"Just get up here, Luke," Mr. Ellis groans. "C'mon, son."

 

There's a squeaking of chair legs against tile and it makes Belle's chest tighten at the sound, one of her eyes closing. _Geez,_ she mumbles, _couldn't he be a bit more considerate?_ She sighs as his footfalls are heard on her right side. Suddenly her body jerks as there's a shove against her shoulder. She looks up, ready to give Luke Hemmings, whoever the guy is, a piece of her mind because that _so_ was not on accident...

 

And then she sees his eyes.

 

"Sorry," he mutters, glancing down at her for a second. In that moment, he could probably hold a gun to her head and she would still feel forced to be the one apologizing. In just the millisecond he held her gaze, she swears that she drowned in his eyes, they're just so blue. Belle swallow the thick lump in her throat as Luke begins moving to the front of the class room.

 

His eyes are glued to his paper, never straying, and his whole muscled-yet-trim figure is coiled underneath the black clothing rested on his tall frame. One of his lean hands is wrapped in a dirty bandage and the other, slightly shaking, is peppered with scars both new and old like a constellation across the back of his hand. He's absolutely breathtaking, and the only thought that's buzzing around in Belle's brain is: _How did I not ever notice this guy?!_ As he wets his full, dark lips, he mutters in a gravelly tone:

_"You can walk alone;_

_Laugh alone, cry alone, but-_

_You can't love alone."_

 

Of course Belle was expecting some dense poem about videogames or pizza, not something as intellectual or deep as that. _That was actually really good,_ Belle thinks to herself. She watches as he nods at Mr. Ellis, silently asking if he's done with his recital or if he needs to stand up for any more time, and Belle watches as his blonde hair moves against his forehead.

 

"Did you Google that or something?" Wesley snorts, leaning back in his seat as he stretches his arms out to the side. Luke shoots him a glare and even Belle is frozen in her seat, her trembling fingers unmoving against her legs. As the blonde begins stalking to his seat in the back of the room, Belle feels her shoulder brushed just slightly by Luke's hand, and this time she swears it was on purpose.

 

**_2:59 p.m._ **

 

"High fives to Belle, Luke, and Ashely," Mr. Ellis grins, jogging around the room to distribute his reward. Belle can't help but smile as she feels the smack against her hand, her insides warming at such a simple gesture. Ellis stands at the front of the room and claps his hands just as he always does, "All right, good job today, guys. Your homework is to read the haikus designated on this sheet of paper," he speaks as he begins to pass papers down each row, "and start looking at the chapter in your text book on sonnets because we'll be starting those soon."

 

Belle finds herself chocking up her subconscious as she watches the last few moments of the clock beginning to tick down because there's a certain mysterious boy in the back of the classroom with whom she wants to speak with.

 

"Hey Bells," Wesley grabs her elbow just as she begins to stand, the shrill bell ringing in the background. He pulls her back, her shoulder knocking into his chest as she tries to walk towards where Luke Hemmings is sticking his disarrayed, scribbled-on folder into his holey Jansport backpack. "What?" she questions, gazing at him flatly. Of course Wesley is attractive with his warm brown eyes and short brown hair just grazing his ears and flopping on his forehead. The only problem is Wes has absolutely nothing going on upstairs because he's so precariously preoccupied with the emphatic attention he constantly brings to his downstairs.

 

"You're going to Jess's party, right?" he looks at her hopefully, flashing a boyish grin that makes most girls weak at the knees, and it would do the same trick on Belle... _if_ every other grin she's ever seen wasn't already blown out of the water by the frowning face at the back of the class. "U-Uh," she shakes her head, pulling herself from her ogling thoughts, "Too busy, no."

 

Wesley's eyes darken to almost black, "You should come, doll, I've always wanted to see you dance. I bet when you get a drink or two past those pretty lips, you'll learn that you're a bit of a grinde-" Belle flashes him a weak smile, moving his fingers from her elbow simultaneously, "I have to go, I'll see you later Wes." With a nod, he looks completely taken aback by her ease at which she can push his charms far away.

 

With determination set deep in her veins, Belle turns on her heels and walks to the back of the classroom where Luke is struggling with the zipper on his bag. She hears him curse under his breath, but she dismisses it, trying not to cringe. Just as she makes it so she can reach out and touch him, he's bolted from the room, rushing down his aisle to the vacant door. She follows after him, trying to catch up to him before those long, gangly legs can take him too far away from her.

 

"Luke!" she calls, desperately praying that she won't fall on her face in the high heels strapped up to her knees. Belle huffs as he continues down the hallway, his hood pulled over the top of his head, her ankles yelping in pain thanks to the shoes Melody forced her into that apparently make her legs look "bangin'"-whatever that means. At the end of the hall, he nears the double doors that lead to a walkway which then leads down a path to the Senior Parking Lot. "Hey, Luke, wait up!" Belle yells, half jogging, half walking, to hurry up and catch him.

 

At the sound of her voice, he casts a shifted glance over his shoulder before lengthening his strides to move faster. Belle groans and forces herself to run despite the blisters on her feet thanks to the awful kitten heel boots flaring up. "Luke!" she says, grabbing the back of his arm just as his hand thrusts out against the door handle, pushing it open.

 

"What do you want?" he snaps as he turns to face her, his frown hard and his lips in a tight line.

Belle steps back a bit, taken by surprise by the rough quality of his voice and the way he steps closer to her so he's towering in an intimidating way. "I-I," she gulps, finding herself warmed from the inside out by the proximity of Luke Hemmings. "I j-just wanted to, um, to s-say that your p-poem, your poem was really good," Belle manages to choke out, feeling like she's speaking against a mass of cotton balls residing in her throat. "It was really good." She nods as if solidifying her statement, "It was good."

Luke's face crumples in disbelief as he shakes his head slightly, "Y-You just sprinted down the hallway in heels to tell me that my poem was good?"

 

She nods, her jaw falling slack. Luke's eyes glance over her body one swift time and suddenly Belle feels nothing but inadequacy. She wishes instantly that she wasn't wearing the tight jeans, knee-high boots, and the itchy, clingy sweater. Luke smirks slightly, only the smallest bit of the left corner of his lip upturning, and shakes his head before turning around to continue walking as if she never said a word.

Belle can't help when she gapes openly at him, "You're not going to say thank you?" She struggles to pull her heavy, designer bag up her shoulder as she tries to keep pace with his slender, lengthy legs.

Luke shrugs, "You go around asking for a thank you and eventually no one will want your compliments anymore, sunshine."

 

Belle's heart flutters unwillingly at the nickname but she chastises herself for the feeling directly afterward. _He only called me that because he has no idea what my name is,_ she reasons with herself, carrying on an internal conversation as she tries to quench the fire burning in her belly.

 

"W-Well, I just assume it's a nicety to say thank you when someone compliments you," Belle says simply with her nose in the air as she doubles the speed of her stride to keep up with Luke's pace. He readjusts the cotton hood of his leather jacket over his head to cover his hair except for the tiny bit that's splayed over his forehead and then shoves his one good hand deep inside the pocket of his black skinny jeans. Belle allows herself a moment to glance over his figure-broad shoulders that create an asymmetrical structure to the leather coat on his body, slim hips and lean legs to finish. Belle finds herself wondering how nice his shoulder blades look but scolds herself directly after. _Where did that thought come from?_

 

"Is there some reason you're following me?" Luke asks in more of a mumble as if he's talking to fill up the empty space or maybe to force Belle to leave him alone. She fishes out her keys from her deep bag, "My car is parked out here. Isn't that why you're walking to the parking lot?"

 

A dark, hard glance is cast in Belle's direction, just over his shoulder, and his blue eyes suddenly remind her of freshly frozen ice. "Is that really any of your business?" His voice is low, deadly.

 

Belle shrugs, trying to play off the hostile vibes his voice is giving her, sending her bones into lock-up mode. "I-I mean, it's just a simple question, I'm making small talk. I'm being _nice_." Luke stops just before they walk out another set of double doors that will lead them into the chilly October weather, "Look, kid," he sighs, rubbing his bandaged hand over his face, wincing, "if there's one thing I hate, it's small talk. No one cares about the weather or how my grandma is doing, I know that." He sighs and looks down at her, his turquoise eyes swirling with a thousand shades of blue, "So why don't you just cut the loss and go back to your lovely little world where you leave me alone? Just because I can scribble down a few words on paper that sound nice doesn't mean that I'm nice."

 

Luke shoves the door open forcefully, the veins in his good hand prevalent, "Got it?" Belle feels angry all of a sudden, after his little speech. "Excuse you," she says, following closely after him. "I'm not a child!" Luke rolls his eyes and all Belle can think is: _Who is he to call me a child? Just because I'm the youngest kid in my grade means nothing. That has no bearing on my intellect nor my maturity. What is he saying?!_ She sets her hands on her hips and glares up at him through the sun that's streaming through the clouds. "I think you need some soup," she tells him indignantly, "or maybe a hug or something, Luke Hemmings. You're rather stuck up...and grumpy too!"

 

He throws his arms in the air as he grumbles something under his breath that Belle can only assume aren't very nice words. She watches as he stalks off rather menacingly towards the city bus stop bench. Stomping her foot, she fists her hands by her side, her keys cutting into her palm. "What...Ugh!" she groans and pulls her key from her key ring, walking towards her car. "What a stupid, infuriating, incompetent, aggravating..." Her tongue easily rolls off ten thousand adjectives that she's sure he'd find offensive if he were to hear them for his own.

 

Even so, something about Luke Hemmings is alluring, and she's determined to find out just exactly what's crawled up his trousers. He's a puzzle, and if there's one thing Belle loves—its puzzles.


	2. 0.1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first chapter!! okay so belle is adorable and innocent and luke is tainted and brooding. don't tell me you didn't see this coming.

**_12:27 p.m._ **

**_Friday, August 22 nd,  2014_ **

****

“What do you mean?!” Melody gapes, her brows furrowed together. Belle swallows the lump in her throat, trying to push her chest out to give herself a bit of an ego boost. “I-I, um,” she stutters, looking down at her chicken tenders. “I’m not sitting with you at lunch, I-I’m going to sit with the debate team.” Melody rolls her eyes, squirting some ranch on her lettuce piece. “The debate team?” she scoffs, tossing her head back, “You’ve got to be kidding me, Belle. I thought you wanted to change, not…” Melody sighs and casts a glance up at her friend, “Fine, go on. Go be a dork. See if I care.”

 

Belle swallows another lump and bashfully blinks up at Melody, “You know if I-I want to make Student Government Secretary I-I have to be good at speeches.” Melody rolls her eyes, “Just go, Belle.” With a nod, the brunette smiles, “Thank you.” Melody’s irises turn to slits, “This better be a one-time thing, you know. Remember what I told you yesterday?” Belle nods her head vigorously, biting her lip simultaneously, “I understand completely. Pinky promise.”

 

She picks up her tray and puts in her lunch number before thanking the lunch lady with a curt head nod and a slight smile. Her eyes skim over the brimming sea of people scuffling around the cafeteria. With her head held high she walks past the table filled with her normal buddies and continues into an enclave section of the lunchroom which is occupied by really clingy couples or creepy people. _Which should be her first red alert, no-no sign._

 

At the other end of the first of three tables sits a figure in a black t-shirt with holes splattered over the fabric. Belle’s eyes immediately flicker around to the spots of tanned flesh that she can see through the material and it’s as if her lungs have suddenly stopped working. _Breathe, Belle, breathe._ She squeezes her tray hard, the plastic biting into her palm, and gathers her nerve into a pool at the center of her chest. _Here goes nothing, c’mon._

 

Sliding into the stool across the table from where Luke Hemmings is sat, she places her tray onto the table. He’s working on something in a small notebook, his arm placed strategically that no one could see or read what he’s putting down unless they were directly over his shoulder. _It must be important to him_ , she figures to herself, picking at the Styrofoam lunch plate she’s eating off of. When he finally takes his eyes away from the notebook, they flicker upwards to see who he obviously wasn’t expecting to be there. His turquoise irises flicker dark blue before turning light once more, his jaw hanging slightly slack.

 

“What did I do now?” he asks abrasively, his tone gruff as if he hasn’t spoken all day. Belle shrugs, trying to appear nonchalant, “Nothing, I just figured you could use the company. You’re eating alone.”

 

Luke raises his eyebrows, nodding slowly, “Yes…that’s kind of the point.” Belle rolls her eyes, “Why? No one wants to bother the big bad wolf?” Luke snorts humorlessly, tossing his head back for a moment, “Maybe they want to keep all their limbs in tact…Or…” He taps his pen against the table and leans his head forward as if he’s about to share a big secret. “Maybe I _like_ sitting alone.”

 

Belle rolls her eyes, picking up her plastic fork and spearing one of her chicken tenders, looking downwards so she won’t be so targeted by his piercing blue irises. “Don’t be silly,” she mutters, twirling her chicken in her ketchup. “No one likes being alone.” She forces herself to look up at him in order to drag herself out of her thoughts, watching as he tucks his notebook back into his bag that’s seated on the floor. Luke brings his hand back up to drum his bruised knuckles against the tabletop with a grimace and that’s when Bella sees that he’s not got a lunch tray or even a little brown paper sack in front of him.

 

“Well I do,” he interrupts her thoughts with his curt tone, “and you’re irritating me, kid.”

 

Groaning, she rolls her eyes, smacking her fork onto her plate as she chews the little bite of chicken in her mouth. “If we’re going to be friends,” she gulps, wagging her finger, “we have to get one thing straight: I’m not a kid.”

 

Luke smirks and shakes his head just enough so his bangs fall forward into his eyes, “One, we’re not friends. Two, you’re what—sixteen?” Belle feels a blush crawl up her neck as she nods tentatively. “Case closed,” he says finally, sitting up straight. Belle puts on a brave face, putting her nose in the air like Melody taught her to, and she presses her palms to the cool surface of the lunch table, “We’re going to be friends, Luke Hemmings.”

 

He rolls his eyes, “You’ve gotta stop calling me by my full name, it’s weird, kid.” Belle huffs and crosses her arms over her chest, pouting slightly, getting an amused look out of him. “Well stop calling me kid, then, _Luke Hemmings._ ” With a final shrug, he stops talking completely, his mouth screwed shut as if he were a robot. Belle eats her food, Luke stares her down as if she’s secretly a sleeper agent.

 

As she goes to shift her feet, switching which leg is crossed over the other, the tip of her foot brushes the inside of his thigh. _Stupid tiny tables,_ she mumbles to herself as she tries to avoid him reprimanding her for hitting him. Luke’s eyes snap upwards and lock onto hers, his Adam’s apple raking against the front of his throat.

 

“S-Sorry,” she mutters, pushing her tray away, suddenly unable to eat with him looking at her like that. “I didn’t mean to.”

 

Luke shifts his hips around on the table, pressing his hands between his legs. As Belle watches him try to get comfortable, she notes the change in his skin color from a cool beige to a flushed baby pink. _Is he… blushing?!_

“Y-You going to finish that?” he asks thickly, nodding with his head to gesture to her tater tots. She shakes her head, “No, they’re kind of dry. You can have ‘um if you want.” Luke takes the carton in his hands, dragging it across the table so it’s sat in front of him. He eats veraciously, his eyes glued downwards as he inhales his food. He acts as if he’s not eaten in a few days. _Maybe that’s just how all teenage boys eat,_ Belle tells herself, shrugging off the oddity.

 

Her fingertips drum monotonously against the tabletop, “So what’re you doing this afternoon?” Luke sits up, looking from the tater tots to Belle, forcing himself to pop his spine. “What’d I say about small talk, kid?” She sighs, picking at her fingernails in her lap, “It’s a legitimate question, Luke Hemmings.” He smirks a bit at the exchange of names before shrugging, pulling a placid expression over his face like a shade, “None of your business, sunshine.”

 

“Belle,” she interjects quickly after his sentence is closed. “My name is Belle.”

 

“Belle, then,” he shrugs, “still none of your business, I don’t care what your name is.”

 

**_1:05 p.m._ **

****

As the dismissal bell rings and the entire lunchroom begins the amoeba-like movement towards the exit doors, Luke stands with her trash in his hands. “You’re not sitting with me tomorrow,” he says matter-of-factly. Belle raises her eyebrows indignantly, “You’re not going to tell me what to do.” He groans and pinches the bridge of his nose, “Yes, I am, _Belle_.” The way her name rolls of his tongue is so condescending, as if it’s foreign and strange and shouldn’t be there, but it just sounds so nice…What would it sound like if he were to say it with kindness in his eyes instead of malice?

 

Releasing a slow breath, Belle perks up her head, “We’ll see about that. I’ll see you in sixth period, Hemmings.” He chuckles, turning and walking away as he shakes his head, tossing her trash into the rubbish bin. When she grabs her bag off the ground, she can’t help but notice that his little notebook is still on the ground. He must’ve accidentally dropped it or it fell out of his bag or something.

 

Belle grabs it and stands up to go and chase after him, but he’s already out of her sight. Her brow crumples as she contemplates invading his privacy and rifling through the contents of the folder. _I just want to know what’s going on in his brain,_ she reasons with herself, tucking the little book under her arm.

 

When she walks into history class she can’t help the burning of possibly knowing something secretive about the mysterious blonde overwhelm her. It isn’t like she doesn’t already know about the 1700s, right? _Curiosity killed the cat,_ Belle reminds herself, silently scolding her own mind for thinking about getting into his personal things. _You never go into a writer’s private notebook. Lord knows I wouldn’t want anyone in mine._

 

The words that are written in different colored inks burn in her mind like a forest fire, playing like a movie screen behind her eyelids as she shutters them closed. Even so, her conscience is pushed down by her curiosity and she finds herself pulling out the little tattered notebook. On the front are ten thousand little sketches of band logos and random doodles done in permanent marker, along with his name written out in duct tape strips. Slowly, Belle opens it as if maybe there’s a booby trap inside that will release a monster that will chomp off her hand in one bite.

 

 _You’re so dumb,_ she shakes her head at herself as she pulls open the front page. On the inside are a few blank pages to start and then some math homework. She bypasses that in order to get to the paper he was writing on earlier at lunch. _There it is!_ It’s been written in smudged pencil on the back of a graded science assignment. At the top of the page is the title “Out of My Limit”. There’s scribbles and crossed out words and phrases and finally Belle gets to a legible stanza that hasn’t been tampered with:

 

_“You’re just a little bit out of my limit,_

_It’s been two years now,_

_Haven’t even seen the best of me._

_And in my mind now,_

_I’ve been over this a thousand times._

_And it’s almost over,_

_Let’s start over.”_

As her eyes scan over the other words and she pieces the puzzle that Luke Hemmings has laid out together, Belle deducts that the song is about a girl. If it is a song at all. It causes a little sinking in her chest to press against her heart. The words aren’t magically written on paper about her, no matter how much she wished they were. What would it be like to have a boy think about you so much he has to release his thoughts onto paper? _Maybe if I knew Luke two years ago, things would be different. I was different back then, would he have liked…_ She shakes her head, pulling herself from the intoxicating thoughts. It hasn’t been two years, but a mere two days.

 

She slides the folder back into her bag gently and then places her chin in her palm, pouting slightly because it’s now obvious that Luke has a girl already on the brain. That doesn’t leave any room for herself.

 

 _Come on, Belle,_ she mentally chastises herself, _this isn’t High School Musical 1, 2, or 3. He doesn’t even want to be around you, he doesn’t care, and he won’t ever like you. Get over yourself._

Even so, she finds herself falling into the thought of the deadly “What-If” land with the lovely boy named Luke Hemmings, and it hurts.

 

**_3:17 p.m._ **

****

“Have a good weekend,” Mr. Ellis salutes with a grin. The bell rings and Belle grabs her bag in haste, jogging after Luke as he tries to exit the room. “Luke,” she grabs for his elbow. “Y-You left your folder at lunch, um, I-I, uh, I have it here…” She fishes into her bag and hands it to him with trembling digits, wishing she could hide her hands in the sleeves of her crewneck. _Please don’t see how awkward I am, pleeeease don’t notice._ She screams inside her head. _Please don’t read my mind._ She’s afraid that if he can somehow reach into the recesses of her mind, he’ll be able to know that she read the lyrics written down in his secret book.

 

Luke looks down at her, his eyes hard as a rock, “Did you go through this?” She bites her lip, pulling the flesh into her mouth, and shakes her head. “N-No, no, I didn’t.” He scoffs, stuffing his book in his bag as he looks down. “ _Right_.” Luke picks up his bag and shoulders it, turning on his heel to walk out of the classroom.

 

Belle hurries after him, thankful that today she is in Vans instead of her usual high-heels. “Okay,” she huffs, “So maybe I did look a _little_ , b-but just at the lyrics. I didn’t copy your notes or homework or anything, I’m not a cheater.” He snorts, tossing his head back as he pulls his cloth hood of his leather jacket over the top of his head, appearing more ominous. “No,” he shakes his head, looking indignant, “no, you’re not a cheater, you’re just someone who has no regard for personal things, hmm?”

 

The glance he gives her sends ice to her bones, “I-I was just curious about what you were writing!” Her voice is high-pitched due to her nervousness, but she can’t stop it, she’s on autopilot. “I read some, and—and they’re very good, Luke. I write songs too, y’know, so maybe we could get together some time and—“

 

Luke turns swiftly towards her and walks forward to force her so she’s against the wall. He’s towering, leaning just slightly so she has to look upwards in order to meet his eyes.

 

“Leave me alone, Belle,” he speaks gruffly, his blue eyes flitting all over her face. “I’m not another one of your preppy pep rally friends, in case you haven’t noticed, and I’m not a deep and mysterious bad boy that you can figure out like a puzzle.” She winces at that, her shoulders brushing abrasively against the cinderblock wall. _I like puzzles,_ she pouts inwardly. Belle swallows thickly, “So?”

 

Luke rolls his eyes, reaching up and pressing his forearm against the part of the wall just above her head, “ _So_ , I’m bad. I’m very bad and I don’t think you, or your million dollar mummy and daddy, would like me at all.” Belle rolls her eyes and crosses her arms over her chest, pulling her textbook tight to her torso. “That’s not true, Luke Hemmings.” He groans at the back of his throat and it makes her stomach flip, “You’re not bad. Even if you’ve done bad things, you’re not a bad person. Everyone has good in them, duh.”

 

He shifts his feet closer so their chests are almost brushing, his nose to where it could touch her forehead if she just moved the right way. _You’re so dumb, Belle, he doesn’t even like you – what’re you doing?!_ She grinds her teeth together as her toes shift inward, her feet overlapping. He’s so close that she can smell his aftershave lotion and if she stretched just a _little_ further, she could see if his full lips taste just as good as they look. On instinct she pulls her lower lip into her mouth and gnaws on the full flesh, causing Luke’s eyes to divert downward before shakily moving back up to her eyes.

 

“I’m not good,” he defends weakly, shaking his head. For some odd reason Belle wants to reach up and push the hood off the top of his head and _maybe_ brush her thumb over his full lower lip. “I do bad things to people. I’m just trying to get out of this place with the least amount of ties as possible and you’re not making my life easy right now, sunshine.” Her skin tingles at the nickname and her eyes can’t help but zero in on his Adam’s apple as it bobs up and down with his words. She trails her gaze up to his eyes, “So just rewind your lovely little life two days and pretend you never heard me recite that stupid poem, all right?”

 

The burn inside her fingertips is too much and Belle finds herself shakily reaching upwards to press the pads of her fingers to his cheek. Luke’s breath hitches in his throat and his eyes widen and his head subconsciously turns so he’s leant into her palm. His lips part and a small sigh comes out as she whispers in a stupor, “You can be good.”

 

As soon as it starts, it ends. Luke reels back, pushing himself away from her by shoving off the wall. “Forget it,” he blows out a short breath from his nose as he shakes his head. He grabs his bag and puts it back over his shoulder, “Forget me.”

 

Belle watches him stride down the hall, his head ducked as low as it can, his broad shoulders causing people to part without him having to utter a word. She brings up her hand to marvel at it, twisting her extremity in front of her face. There’s a buzzing in her fingers that she doesn’t ever want to go away. And it must be infectious because she feels the same tingly sensation in her lower stomach.

 

The feelings don’t leave as Belle climbs in her car or when she drives home or when she goes into the house or when she showers or when she climbs into bed.

 

And she’s not sure if she wants it to.


	3. 0.2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i hope you like the belle x luke interaction in this chapter!! and stupid wesley makes an appearance grr. comments/reviews/kudos are appreciated, and thank you for reading!!

**_12:29 p.m._ **

**_Thursday, August 28 th, 2014_ **

Belle’s never sure she’s ever felt more ignored in her lifetime, aside all those days when her parents…But that’s another story. Anyone she’s ever tried to make conversation with _normally_ talks back, at least offers a bit of enthusiasm. Luke Hemmings?

 

Not a chance.

 

He won’t talk, he won’t look, he won’t move. It physically pains her because he’s her puzzle she’s bent on trying to solve and it seems as if he doesn’t care one iota about her. _I’ve got to try something else,_ Belle tells herself as she forces herself through the lunch line no matter how much her stomach is churning. _I’ve got to talk about him, I’ve got to make him talk._ She pays for her food and looks up, searching for the familiar table he’s sat at.

 

Today he’s wearing a plain white t-shirt and the same black jeans that are ripped on one knee, a black beanie perched atop his bright blonde hair, his bangs peeking out from underneath as they flop on his forehead. Belle sucks in a deep breath as she forces herself to move towards the table. She tried to make herself seem more appealing, wearing only an over-sized sweater and some skinny jeans with her Keds as opposed to the high skirts, tights, and skin-tight sweaters Melody forces her into.

 

When she sits down, he doesn’t look up.

 

He continues scribbling on a piece of paper, drawing a little bird surrounded by music notes along the margins. “Whatcha drawing?” she asks, leaning over the table with her hands in her lap, her lower lip pulled into her mouth. He covers it up without a word, eliciting a sigh from Belle as she settles back into her seat.

 

As she picks at her pizza, pulling the sausage bits off it, she mumbles, “You want this?” No response. “Hello?” She reaches out and waves her hand in front of his face, a pepperoni piece wiggling between her fingers. “Anyone home?!”

 

Luke shifts in his seat uncomfortably as if he’s keeping his lips locked, not uttering a word. He chews on the corner, pulling the little black hoop into his mouth. She pushes the food aside and plops her leather bound notebook onto the table. His eyes flicker upwards to the journal-like book even though he still refuses to look at her face. “Look,” she says with faux confidence, “I brought my song lyric book. Remember, I told you I write too. You wanna see it?”

 

_Nothing._

Belle leans back while crossing her arms over her chest, pouting out her lower lip just a bit. She tries to rack her brain for a way to force a few words out of him, but nothing comes to mind. She just wants him to talk to her, not sit there staring like he’s a statue at the park down the street.

 

“Here you go, stinkbrain,” she says as she pulls out a piece of gum from her purse, tossing it at him. As it pinks off his nose, Belle snaps angrily, “Eat your heart out!”

 

She expects a laugh, a snide remark—something! Instead of cracking a smile or calling her ‘kid’, Luke remains stoic. His lips remain in a hard, flat line, and his blue eyes stay shaded from her as he picks at the stray fibers of his jeans.

 

Belle wets her lips and sighs, “So, how was your day?” _Nada._ “My day has been kind of boring, thanks for asking. I’ve got some homework tonight, what about you?” _Nope._ “I feel like I could ask you literally _anything_ and you’d give me no reaction.” She chuckles to herself and looks at him in what she hopes will make him turn those pretty blue irises her direction.

 

“Okay,” she starts, swallowing the lump in her throat as she begins talking with her hands, “so when you take a shower, do you face the shower head or turn your back to it? Some people face it and that’s really weird. Would you feel like you’re drowning? I would think so, what with it constantly hitting your face in a constant stream.”

 

_Nothing, zip, zilch, nada, nothing._

Finally she grunts, whining, “Please talk to me!”

 

Of course the childish approach _definitely_ doesn’t work, so she continues searching for another option to coerce something from his full lips. Belle’s fingernails tap against the tabletop, “So is Luke short for Lucas or something?”

 

He grunts, startling her, and his eyes shift towards her. Belle feels a shot of electricity pumping through her veins at just the simple sight of his gaze. “Lucas Hemmings has a nice ring to it,” she smiles. “Lucas Hemmings, Lucas, Lucaaaaas, Luuuuuucas.” She giggles to herself as the name rolls off her tongue ten thousand different ways.

 

Luke narrows his eyes, “No.”

 

Belle tries to contain her grin from splitting open her entire face at the fact that she finally forced a single word and a noise from him. It seems like an accomplishment. “Lucifer, then?” she asks, trying to hold in the snort desperately waiting at the base of her throat to escape.

 

A low growl comes from the back of his throat as he clenches his fists above the table. “My name is just Luke,” he says as he sits up, his spine straightened. “Not Lucas, not Lucifer, not Luca, not Lulu.” Belle finds herself smiling from one ear to the other, “I don’t know. I think you look like a Lucas.”

 

Luke rolls his eyes and tightens his fists, “And you look like a dork.”

 

She snorts, her eyes crinkling at the sides, “That’s the best you’ve got?” She leans across the table, “You could’ve said I look like a Martin or a Morris or even a Marion.” The corners of Luke’s lips upturn ever so slightly and she counts that as an internal, personal victory. “But a dork?” she asks indignantly, rolling her eyes. “That was pretty weak, Lucas.”

 

“Whatever, kid,” Luke returns the eye roll. “You’re so immature.” She snorts, “You’re the one who called me a dork, Luke Hemmings.” He grunts and crosses his arms, his biceps bulging ever so slightly, “I should lock you in the janitor’s closet for that one, sunshine. You know I could.” Belle reaches across the table and pokes his chest with a grin, “But you won’t because you _like_ me,” she drags out the word.

 

Luke’s eyebrows skyrocket as his lower lip quivers. “Wh-What gave you that stupid thought?!” He gulps, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbing furiously. “I can’t stand you, kid.”

 

Belle smiles knowingly, “You talked to me.”

 

He frowns as the bell rings, “Yeah, kid? Well don’t get used to it.”

 

**_2:23 p.m._ **

****

“Why do you walk so fast?” Belle whines, following close behind Luke’s heels as they walk into English class. He shrugs, “I’ve got long legs.”

 

 _Goodness, yes. Lovely, long, muscular legs. I could stare at them all…_ Belle shakes her head to pull herself from the thoughts, bringing her eyes slowly up Luke’s legs as they walk down the aisle to their classes. She swallows thickly as she meets his eyes, watching as his gaze flickers backwards over his shoulder so he can smirk down at her.

 

Luke strides once more and then turns to sit down, looking at his lap. Over the past few conversations, Belle has noticed that whenever Luke wants to stop talking, he looks at his hands in his lap. It makes her upset because even if he’s closed off, she wants to see his pretty blue eyes.

 

With a sigh, she sits in her own chair, pulling out her binder and laying it on the table. When she looks up to read the board, it’s blank. _What’s Ellis got up his sleeve?_ As she grabs out her pencils and an eraser, Wesley slides into the door at the last second, just as the bell rings, with the rest of his group following behind. They’re all laughing to each other and talking under their breath about some kid and a bathroom, although Belle isn’t sure why they’re talking about that.

 

“How old school is that?” Luke mutters from behind, “Locking some helpless ninth grader in a locker because he wears glasses and is in AP History.”

 

Belle turns to look back at him, catching Wesley’s wink as she swivels her head. “What?” she whispers. Luke rolls his eyes and nods at Wes, “They locked a kid in the bathroom.” Her face falls, cheeks turning pale and jaw unhinging. “Are you serious?!”

 

She bites down on her lower lip, a sigh desperate to escape from her lips. Belle wishes that she could speak up and say something because she used to _be_ that kid. She was the one in previous years who got shoved and pinched and teased and once she even had gum stuck in her hair. The texts, the prank calls, the jokes. All of it was awful. Until she made that one decision.

 

“Hey doll,” Wes whispers with a smirk as he puts his arm around the back of her seat. Belle forces a smile, her skin crawling with the nickname, “Hi.” He readjusts himself in the seat, “You wanna go see a movie with me this afternoon?” His voice is gruff and low as if he’s got something stuck in his throat left over from lunch. It doesn’t sound near as lovely in comparison to Luke’s deep timbre, in Belle’s opinion.

 

Before she can answer, Mr. Ellis comes out from his office that’s connected to his classroom, “Guess what we’re doing today?” He grins wildly as he looks out over the class full of kids. The mass of teenagers shrug, not really caring one way or the other what they’re doing. “Partner activity!” he cheers. “Wooh!”

 

Immediately everyone makes eye contact with someone else in the room, and suddenly Belle feels a warm palm against her shoulder. “Belle?” Wesley calls softly. Even so, Belle already has her eyes turned over her shoulder to glance at Luke, who is currently fluttering his eyes around the room like a lost puppy in search of it’s owner. She waves at him and he visibly deflates, blowing air between his lips as his shoulders sink into his chair. The only thing that proves to her that he’s lying with his posture is the little diamonds that suddenly appear in his crystalline eyes.

 

“I can’t,” she shakes her head as she looks at Wesley. “Sorry, I think Brianne is available.” He sneers at her, his upper lip curling, “I see what this is.” As she begins to gather her things, Belle calls over her shoulder, “Hmm?” Wesley snorts as she turns so she’s with Luke, her legs tucked under his desk, “You have a thing for the homeless looking guy with all the holes in his shirts in the back, huh? Hemmings?” She shrugs, “He’s nice, don’t say he looks homeless just because he’s got a couple of holes in his shirts, Wes. I didn’t hear you calling me homeless when I wore jeans with rips in them the other day.”

 

His eyebrows raise just slightly as a smirk paints it’s way onto his lips, his arms bulging as he flexes, “That’s because you’ve got a hot set of legs, doll. Hemmings doesn’t do anything for me, on the other hand. Anyways, I saw you two at lunch. What’s that—sharing your food?” Belle rolls her eyes and notes that Luke is trying his hardest to look away as the whispered words are exchanged. “He’s nice,” she repeats, “so what if I do?”

 

As Wesley walks back to a blonde in the back of the room, he leans down and whispers in her ear, “He’s not all he seems. Maybe I can tell you about it on our date this afternoon?” He rubs his hands up and down her arms as the devilish smirk continues to take place on his lips. She shrugs him off, forcing a smile, “Bye.”

 

Luke snorts and as Belle looks up his expression goes from amused to stony. He scoffs, “Of course I’d be stuck with _you_.” She pokes his arm while smiling, “Yep, you would be. And I don’t appreciate the absolute lack of enthusiasm, Luke Hemmings. I’m pretty good in English, maybe you should be thanking me instead of being so standoffish.” He leans close to her, his lips pulled into a smirk as his warm breath fans over her cheeks. “I’ll let you in on a secret: nobody likes a braggart.”

 

Belle holds back a shiver and musters as much of her inner courage as possible and whispers back, “Except you.”

 

“You don’t know that,” Luke instantly leans back, his skin turning pink. He crosses his arms, letting his legs sprawl out in the area in front of his desk, his feet on the little basket under the seat in front of his.

 

She nods with the smallest trace of a smirk on her full lips, “Sure I do.”

 

**_2:32 p.m._ **

 

After everyone has seated and settled, Ellis stands up and begins giving instructions. “You’re going to get these little strips of paper with words to a sonnet on them,” he explains, holding up an example. “You have to put them in order based on the rhyme scheme an iambic pentameters.” He passes back plastic bags with the strips of paper for each group down the aisles.

 

Belle takes the strips out of the bag as Luke hands the last one to the group behind them. “Great,” Luke groans. She shoves his shoulder lightly, grinning, “Don’t be such a chump, Luke Hemmings.” Luke laughs breathily, rolling his eyes. “I’ll be whatever I want to be and I’d like to see you try and stop me, sunshine.” Belle finds herself blushing in the slightest as Mr. Ellis instructs the class to start on rearranging the papers.

 

“It’s Shakespeare,” Belle states plainly, reading a familiar line.

 

Luke nods, muttering under his breath as he glances over the strips, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” _Wow, that sounds so nice coming from his lips,_ Belle thinks as she chews on her lower lip, concentrating on Luke’s mouth as he mumbles the words. “I know this one,” he provides. She glances up at him, cocking her head, “You do?” He nods, “Yeah, my mom…” He leaves it there, his words like an unfinished trail.

 

His hands start flitting all around the desk, picking up and reorganizing the papers in the correct order, little whispers of the poem leaving his lips all the while. Luke pulls his knees back under the desk, leaning so his torso is shadowing the desk, his chin in his palm. As he does so though, his thigh brushes Belle’s underneath the table and she feels herself seize up completely, every muscle in her body turning rigid. The skin underneath her jeans is buzzing wildly, sending tingles all the way from her thigh to her chest where her heart begins beating wildly. Belle bites down on her lips, forcing herself to calm down because he’s not doing anything on purpose, he’s just trying to see the paper better.

 

“But thy eternal summer shall not fade,” Luke says lowly as a smile spreads over his dark lips. He’s not even aware of the havoc he’s wreaking on Belle’s senses as he shifts in even the smallest of ways in his seat, his leg touching hers. She can’t help herself from breathing in his scent and feeling warmth where his arms and legs keep bumping into hers and it all just feels so…good.

 

Luke sits back with a satisfied smirk, “There: done.”

 

Belle glances over the little slips of paper and nods her head when she reads the poem in it’s entirety and the lines sounds as if they’re in the right order. “Very good, you guys,” Mr. Ellis smiles encouragingly from where he’s stood over their desk. “You two a team now or something?”

 

She looks at Luke, reading for a snarky remark about how he’d never associate with her willingly, that maybe she put him up to working with him. Luke looks down at her, his eyes roaming over her face as another genuine smile curls his mouth upward.

 

“Something like that.”

 

Belle has to bite down on her lower lip to keep the champagne bubbles within her chest from spilling over her lips. Slowly but surely Luke is cracking and she wonders if maybe, _just maybe_ , he’ll allow her to break through his walls and see who he really is. She doesn’t let the thought consume her though, because she’s mostly afraid that he’s just teasing with her. Maybe he’s just acting nice now so she’ll leave him alone and then he’ll toss her away when he gets bored, just like anyone else has ever done.

 

As soon as Ellis takes the papers off of the desk, Luke begins to stare down at his lap again, signaling that he’s done being so friendly. Belle sighs and rests her head in her hands, looking over at him, “Good job!” She forces a warm smile onto her lips in the hopes that maybe he’ll reciprocate.

 

Luke shrugs, “Anyone could’ve done it. I kinda cheated, I knew the poem.” Belle shakes her head, “That’s not cheating. That’s…using your resources!” As soon as he shrugs again and goes silent, Belle feels like hitting herself upside the head.

 

 _You’re so dumb, you’re so lame. Shut up, he doesn’t want to hear you and your stupid lame words. Stop._ She fists her hands in her lap, her nails biting into her palms and leaving little crescent moons behind in their painful wake. Belle looks up at him and he’s staring intently at a rip in his jeans, his hands laced together and rested against his stomach as he slouches in his chair.

 

 _Well,_ she thinks, _now that that’s over…_

And instantly her mind goes back to those same treacherous thoughts from earlier.

 

**_3:19 p.m._ **

 

“Do you need a ride or something?”

 

Belle wraps her arms around her torso as they walk down the pathway towards the senior parking lot. The weather has gone from sunny to drizzling, cold, and windy, and Belle has to keep blinking to keep the little rain drops from her eyes. Luke shakes his head and responds flatly, “No.” Belle raises her eyebrows, “You’re going to freeze your grumpy bottom off if you wait in the rain for the bus or if you walk. I-I know you walk sometimes.”

 

Luke shrugs, “The cold never bothered me, sunshine.” Belle snorts, her eyes crinkling as she smiles faintly, “Until your parents are footing the bill for you to get treated for pneumonia. C’mon, Luke.” Belle reaches up to tug on his sleeve, pouting her lips as she drags her hand down his arm until she brushes her knuckles to his. The touch is electric and Luke pulls back as if he’s been burned, his eyes wide. His full lips part as he breathes harder, “I said no. Learn what no means, okay?!”

 

As he pulls his hood over his hair, he lengthens his strides and walks into the rain to cut through the parking lot. Belle groans and huffs, stomping her foot, “You’re so stupid, he doesn’t even want to be around you. Stop. Just stop, Belle. Gosh, you’re so dumb.” She brings a shaky hand to her forehead as she watches him turn down the road and walk down the sidewalk, his hoodie dotted with rain drops. She sighs deeply and wraps her arms back around herself and goes toward her car.

 

Belle grunts and yanks open her trunk, accidently hitting herself in the face. “Ow,” she whines, rubbing her nose, knowing that it’ll bruise sooner or later.

 

“Need some help?” Belle turns around abruptly, her hand still covering her nose. “No,” she shakes her head, sneering her best at Wesley, “I’m quite all right, thank you.” He comes over and sets her bag in the trunk, taking the umbrella from over his head to hold it over hers. Belle brings her hand away from her face to help herself into her car. Wesley grabs her arm, though, and causes her to look upwards. “That date, though,” he smirks.

 

She pulls back, “Hm?” He runs a hand through his curly hair, “I asked if you were going on that date with me tonight. I offered earlier.” Belle wets her lips, “I-I don’t—“

 

“I’ll tell you about Luke,” Wesley interjects desperately. Belle feels herself weighing the options in her mind, chewing on her lip relentlessly. Finally, she swallows, taking a deep breath, “I can only be out for an hour. Then I have to get home to work on a project. Got it?” He nods, “That’s perfect. I’ll meet you at Jet’s?”

 

 _Of course he would make me drive myself._ Belle turns on her car and waits until she gets to follow Wesley out of the parking lot and towards the small diner a few blocks away. It’s strange because as she’s going down the street, she sees a tall blonde figure stalking down the sidewalk. He ducks his head into the doorway of a shoddy gym, checking over his shoulder before slipping inside. Belle almost rams into Wes’s car in front of her because she’s preoccupied with watching Luke’s shoulders through his thin shirt as he saunters inside.

 

“No wonder he stays so in shape,” she mutters to herself as she parks in Jet’s.

 

Once inside the restaurant and seated, Belle leans across the table to look Wes in the eyes. “Tell me,” she says with curious eyes.

 

He smirks, “Rumor has it that Luke Hemmings killed someone.”

 

Belle manages to roll her eyes even though her curiosity has piqued. _There’s no way…He’s only seventeen! Wouldn’t he be, like, in jail?! Juvy?!_  She’s utterly confused and that’s the _only_ reason why Wesley is getting the tiniest of an iota of her attention.

 

“Very cute,” she scoffs, sitting back in the bench, “I didn’t come all the way down here and suffer through being mentally groped by you to hear some lame rumor. Is that really the best you can do, Wes?”

 

Wesley’s face falls as he watches her shift in her seat to stand and so he holds out his hands, “I’m being serious, doll.” Her skin crawls with the name, feeling like a nest of spiders have taken refuge on her body and she absentmindedly scratches her arms. “Someone said they found him in a paper from Panama City,” Wesley continues. “The article said that he killed some guy with his bare hands.”

 

With a snort she looks at him in disbelief, “I hate rumors, Wesley. You of all people should know.” His previously desperate eyes turn dark at the mention of the past and his smirk returns, sending chills to Belle’s very bones. “I don’t care about your little tall tale,” she sighs as she sits up to drink from her straw. But is it a rumor?

 


	4. 0.3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> BELLE IS SO STINKING NOSY

**_4:57 p.m._ **

**_Thursday, August 28 th, 2014_ **

 

She doesn’t say _good bye._

 

She doesn’t even say _bye._

 

She doesn’t even want to look him in the eyes.

 

Belle hates the fact that Wesley thought he could just reach under the table with his long arms and grab her thigh and squeeze. She hates the fact that he thinks he’s so smooth, so slick, that he can just touch her whenever. She knows it isn’t right, she knows it isn’t fair, but that doesn’t change his attitude.

She slams the car door and drives off, not even bothering to buckle up her seatbelt in the process. The entire drive home her knuckles are white and her mouth is bubbling with insulting words she wishes she had the gall to fire at Mr. Hot Stuff himself.

 

The sun is just beginning to set in the sky, a painted swirling mess of reds and pinks and blues scattered in the air. If she weren’t going to have to stop in a mere ten feet, Belle would’ve missed the dark figure ducking into the woods thanks to the beauty that’s been captured by the evening skyline. She cranes her neck as her car rolls to a stop at the four-way, trying harder to make sure that the person she sees is who she really is seeing. 

_Luke Hemmings._

 

“No one goes out here,” she mumbles to herself as she turns on her blinker and pulls into the parking lot of the old beat up gas station that stopped selling gas a long while ago. “What’s he doing out here?” As she steps out of her car and locks it with a _click_ , she forces herself to push her feet forward. 

 

With a deep breath, Belle walks past the side of the building near the trees and just as she’s about to go in, she begins mumbling to herself. “Okay, Belle,” she whispers, “you’re about to follow a maybe-murdered into the woods to see what he’s up to. This is probably a really bad idea but…” The curiosity outweighs the fear that’s pent up in her chest and she finds herself stepping over the vines that overrun the floor of the woods. She gulps and pulls her jacket further around her arms, trying to rid the creepy feeling from the back of her neck with a slight rub of her fingers to the prickled skin.

 

The opening where Luke ducked into isn’t very large, just barely big enough for his broad shoulders to slip through. She swallows hard, pushing the growing lump down into her chest and trying to forget the conversation she and Wesley had about Luke as well. The sun is long gone from the sky, a residue of faded shades of gray and blue painted haphazardly with sparkles of constellations dotting the night air.

 

Belle pulls back the few branches barring her from inside whatever other world Luke has ducked into and then she crouches and walks in, her breathing fighting to be labored. As she continues walking through the small tunnel created by the trees and moss hanging from them, she holds her arm in front of her face to keep spider webs and other debris out of her eyes. The light of the moon is just barely visible in streamers that look as if they’re hanging from the limbs of the slowly decaying trees that are surrounding the trail that continues on for a couple more feet. Belle slows down her footsteps on the soggy ground, trying to keep quiet as she hears drunken voices hollering.

 

“Luke!” A loud voice calls and Belle presses herself against a tree trunk, hoping that the darkness will shroud her and keep her from being spotted. “You got any money? I need a beer.”

 

She hears the dark chuckle and suddenly a sharp breath fills her lungs and goosebumps splatter across her forearms as she squeezes her eyes shut. “I wouldn’t have you fifty cents even if I liked ya.” Luke’s voice is close but far enough away that she doesn’t really have to fret about being seen, but it doesn’t dull the erratic beating of her heart caged inside her ribs.

 

Belle swallows a thick lump and peeks her head out from the side of the trunk and tries to take in everything that she can in the quickest glance possible. She can’t tear her eyes away, though, because what she’s seeing isn’t anything she could’ve ever imagined.

 

There’s a wide circle of tents, vehicles, and cots amongst other living spaces set up around a fire that’s beginning to die down to red embers, people walking around and chatting or sitting on logs that are in a tighter circle closest to the fire. The people who are sitting on logs and on the forest floor all look like they could use a bath for the most part, and then she catches a quiff of blonde hair and her attention is ripped away.

 

Off in the distance she sees Luke’s shadow walk further into the clearing towards a beat up VW bus with popped tires and a semi-shattered window. As he ducks into the doorway and shuts it behind him with his ankle catching the side of the car door, Belle finally allows her mind to attempt to wrap around the idea of why a boy like Luke Hemmings would be in a place like this. _Maybe he knows the person who lives in the van…_ she thinks to herself.

 

Belle pushes her feet forward, skirting the clearing under the cover of shadows as she walks. As a cloud passes over the moon and shades the ground beneath her feet, Belle feels herself freezing up, every muscle coiled as the darkness washes over her surroundings. At the moment she really has to pee, but she’s pushing down the urge to run away with fright with the overpowering sense of curiosity. Those feelings are only heightened by the commotions around the fire with a certain tall blonde who is walking around with a drink in his hand, talking to whoever lifts their head. She feels her breath stuck in her throat as he walks closer to where she’s hiding, only because she knows he’d never talk to her again if he found out she was snooping.

 

“Luke!” a voice hiccups. Belle watches as Luke waves to a little boy before walking up to the steps of his van but when he hears his name called, his head turns and a wicked smirk is painted on his lips. “Come out here and join the fun,” the voice calls and Belle’s head whips around to see a mildly drunken body swaying back and forth with a bottle of amber held up in the air, a lazy smile on the man’s face.

 

“I’m about to go study, Ben,” Luke chuckles as he opens the door of his van. “Leave me alone. You should probably get on to bed anyways, put the bottle up.”

_Why do they all know him like they’ve been friends for ages?_ Belle wonders as she rubs a spider web from her cheek. _Why would he come here just to study? Why isn’t anyone else who looks like the rest of these people coming out of the van? Why is he walking around like he owns the place?_

 

All the questions buzzing in her head cloud her brain until finally everything starts coming together piece by piece.

 

The reason he only wears two pairs of pants;

 

The explanation for the holes in his shirts;

 

The reason why he’s always leaving the school gym in the morning with wet hair;

 

The reason why he always asks for her left over lunch despite his dislike for her;

 

The reason he wears the same jacket every day.

_Luke Hemmings is homeless._

 

Instantly Belle’s heart drops into her stomach. Every single negative feeling she’s ever had in the world cannot compare to the heady weight on her shoulders at her revelation. She doesn’t see a mother or father figure walking in or out of the van so she assumes that he’s all alone in that old beat up VW bus. The fact that he doesn’t have his parents (or any siblings, it seems) merely makes her heart sink further down and tears prick at the backs of her eyelids. Her chest heaves and as she goes to reach forward and step out of the clearing, a meaty hand curls around her bicep and she’s yanked backwards.

 

She would cry out to try and get Luke’s attention but the other hand of the person is wrapped around her mouth and the tears that are coming down her face are no longer for sympathy of Luke’s situation, but for fear of her own. Gin-scented breath blows onto her skin and the words of the grungy man she’s being held captive by are whispered over the shell of her ear, “’Ello sweetie…”

 

If she could, she would scream. If she could, she would fight back. If she could, she would do so many things to stop what she feels creeping in on her.

 

But she can’t.

 

“You’re a purdy one, ain’t ya?” he mumbles as his lips brush the curve of her ear, sending goosebumps across her skin. The man is burly, hairy, and smells like the inside of a dog’s mouth. There’s a speckling of blood under his nose, heading towards his mustache. His teeth are yellow, a portion of them missing, and his eyes are bloodshot from some form of illegal drugs, she assumes. “You ain’t from around here,” he slurs, “You gotta be bred and raised to be so purdy.” His meaty finger comes up from where it was positioned over her mouth to brush her cheek as tenderly as a drunken, high man’s finger can move.

 

She’s stricken with fear to the point where she can’t talk or scream or move.

 

The creepy man holding her around the waist smirks, “I ain’t been wit’ a woman in years.” Belle gulps, feeling the knot merely grow inside her throat as she tries to force out words. It’s as if a wad of cotton has been stuffed in her mouth and she can’t produce anything close to real words. “P-Please,” she gasps out, “d-don’t hurt me.”

 

“Hurt ya?” he chuckles, his grip tightening, “I’m only out to have a ‘lil fun, girly. Just a lil…” As he speaks, his hands travel down the front of her torso, sending shivers and goosebumps to the core of her body as he passes from her navel to the waist of her jeans. She begins pushing against his chest as his thick fingers find the button of her pants and he deftly pops it open, causing her to whimper. Belle continues struggling as he leans forward and puckers up his grotesque, cracked lips.

 

Her entire body burns with the thought of her first _everything_ being at the hands of this putrid brute.

 

“Let her go, Frank.”

 

The man – Frank, apparently – looks up, frowning. “I found ‘er fair ‘n square, Luke, I get to have fun now. You can have ‘er next.” Luke steps forward, his arms crossed over his broad chest, ankles shoulder-width apart as his jaw tenses with his teeth tightened together. His voice comes low and slow from a small opening in his mouth, his entire appearance nothing but menacing.

 

“She’s not a toy,” he speaks as if he’s spitting venom, “She’s a person. You’re not going to hurt her, you’re going to let her go.”

 

Belle doesn’t realize until _after_ the fact that the tears are brushing over her full lips that she’s crying, the intensity and severity of the situation finally catching up in her head. “Piss off, Hemmings,” Frank mutters as his hand slides down to cover her bum as he yanks Belle into his chest. As she cringes, a sob can’t be held back any longer and the distressed noise flies, making Luke’s face in turn twist in pain.

 

She’s not sure _how_ it happened, but in one moment Frank is holding onto her like a vice, and in another he’s laid out on the mushy ground with Luke Hemmings towering over him. The blonde’s shoulders are heaving up and down as his labored breathing racks through his chest, and all Belle can see is the glistening of blood on Luke’s knuckles and the traces of it pooled on Frank’s upper lip.

 

“Get up.”

 

Her entire body dips ten degrees as she hears his stiff voice shake her from the ground up. Belle finds it hard, though, because she’s curled up against the base of a tree with her knees tucked into her chest as her body shakes. “Get up,” Luke repeats, his voice slightly annoyed now.

 

She does as told, this time his voice shaking her out of her fearful attitude. She squeezes her eyes shut and wills her mascara to hold in place— _thank God for waterproof._ Her hands covering her mouth prevent another sob from splitting her mouth, but the way Luke is looking at her only makes her want to cry more than she already has. As she buttons up her pants, Luke shifts around, the leaves crinkling under his toes, and his eyes glance up and down on her body and she can feel nothing but absolute shame and disgust for herself.

 

“What’re you doing here?” he asks, his tone slightly puzzled but mostly just angry. Finally, now that everything has calmed down, Belle takes in everything. There Luke is standing, his chest bare, visible scars peppering his tanned skin from either acne or some form of an injury. His hands are curled into shaking fists by his sides, his smoldering gaze turning his irises a nasty shade of navy that matches the glittering sky above their heads. For some reason Belle gets the insane notion and a strange shaking in her fingers that causes her to want to reach out and brush her hands over Luke’s chest and shoulders and jawline and everything in between. She shakes her head and tries to speak, pushing past the lump in her throat.

 

“I-I saw y-you come in here and….I-I was, um, I was wondering why,” she chokes out, wishing she could force herself to just bite her tongue. The look on his face makes her hate herself just enough to shame her into never speaking again. Luke clenches his fists so tightly that his knuckles are turning white and when his palms break apart from his fingers, there are tiny crescent moons from his fingernails left on the inside of his hands. “What I do is none of your business, Belle,” he speaks seriously, his eyes dark. “I don’t know who the fu—“

 

Suddenly he shakes his head and Belle wonders why he froze mid-sentence but when he continues, she merely dismisses it, “Heck taught you that it’s okay to invade a person’s private life, but it isn’t.” She honestly just wishes that he’d yell instead of talking so evenly so she’d know he was feeling something… _Anything._

Luke is just solid, the veins in his neck and throat throbbing visibly. “I’m so-sorry, Luke,” she rubs her eyes to try and rid them of tears but regrets it as soon as she pulls away with black smudges on her fingertips. “I-I just…”

 

He exhales loudly, causing her to stop speaking, “I don’t even care for your explanation.” Luke waves his hand in front of his face as if she’s insignificant. “I want you to leave,” he speaks firmly, “I want you to leave and forget everything that happened here. I want you to forget me, I want you to forget this place, I want you to forget these people. Don’t even _look_ at me in school, do you understand, kid?”

 

Belle cringes at the name but nods her head with a racing heart within her chest. “O-Okay,” she manages to choke out as she grabs her jacket off the ground. Her body is shaking so much that she can’t even force her arms in the sleeves.

 

“Go,” he seethes, looking more like a jail warden than a high school senior.

 

And go she does.

 


	5. 0.4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it's getting personal, hope you like it.

**_8:43 a.m._ **

**_Wednesday, September 3 rd, 2014_ **

****

 

It’s been days.

 

Days without sleep.

 

Every time she closes her eyes, _he_ is there. He’s a ghost traipsing around inside the one place she cannot escape: her mind.

 

She sees the filthy hands and the yellowed teeth with spaces between and the gutting of his dirty fingernails against her skin. It hurts. It feels like she’s in an eternal rerun of a show she can’t escape. Every time she wakes up, she’s sweated through _another_ set of sheets and _another_ t-shirt. She’s taken two days off of school and now her mother is literally forcing her to get up and get going. She won’t stop asking what’s wrong, but Belle can’t really blame her—not after last year’s isolation. That was so scary for her and her mother both, it’s not really shocking that Mrs. Sinclair is so concerned with Belle’s isolation.

 

She sighs and tosses her hair up into a (very) messy bun, afterward slipping on some jeans and a Pierce the Veil t-shirt. In all reality she wishes she could curl back under her covers and snooze for years, but she has to go to school and every time she shuts her eyes the scene replays.

 

A wracking cringe shudders her body as the thought of seeing Luke after so many days comes to mind. He was so angry then, he probably hates her now. She’s sure of it. _I don’t blame him either,_ she thinks as her backpack is slung over her shoulder, _I invaded his privacy and put him at odds with the people he lives with. He_ should _hate me. I’d be concerned if he didn’t._

The reminder of Luke’s current homeless situation physically pains Belle, sending a shot through her chest as one of her heartstrings tugs. She stares at herself in the mirror before casting a longing look at the door adjoining her room and the one which belonged to her brother.

 

_He and Luke are about the same size…_

Her musings only continue to feed the chaos in her mind, sending shivers down her spine and tingles to her toes. “You shouldn’t be thinking about him right now,” she chastises herself, tearing her gaze away from the door. “You shouldn’t be thinking about him and you aren’t beholden to Luke either. Stop it, Belle, stop. You’re an idiot. Just stop.” As she sighs, she realizes just how crazy she might sound at times, what with talking to herself and answering all the time.

 

With a hard swallow, she forces her lead legs to walk out the door and carry her to her car. It feels as if she’s operating a robot, giving her body orders and forcing it to follow them, no emotions running through her veins.

 

Belle drives to school, no music playing in the car, and then parks in her usual spot. Instead of getting out, grabbing her bag, and walking to her locker, she can’t force herself to get up and _go_. So instead she merely sits and sits and sits. She finds herself staring off into space, not a thought in her mind aside from the fleeting feelings of panic bubbling up in her chest.

 

She jolts forward, her hand pressed to her chest, when a little knock comes on the door. Her reflexes slowly drain as she feels the washing away of speed draining from her body, her movements dragging out leisurely as if she doesn’t have anywhere to be or anyone to see. Belle’s tired eyes unhurriedly lift upward to meet the figure standing at the door.

 

_Luke Hemmings._

A gulp bobs her throat and slowly she goes from panicked to confused when she notices the fistful of crushed flowers in Luke’s hands. She can’t force herself to do anything so he just walks to the passenger’s side and opens the door, sliding in and situating himself against the leather seat.

 

“Hi.”

 

She doesn’t say anything; she can’t.

 

“How’re you feeling?” Luke asks quietly, picking at the frayed stems of the flowers.

 

Belle manages a shrug, “Here.”

 

Luke shifts nervously, his knees knocking into her dashboard. “I just wanted to give you these,” he holds out the limp flowers and swallows a lump in his throat. “And I wanted to say I’m sorry for scaring you.” She lifts her eyelids up far enough that she can flick her irises over to glance at him, making shy eye contact. Her heart is ramming against her ribs, hidden by skin and bones, and she’s sure he can see the outline of her organ against the front of her shirt.

 

“Oh?”

 

The bouquet shifts hands as Luke juts his arm forward in a giving gesture. He waits for a moment as Belle merely stares, too shocked to do much but glare at the bunch of smushed flowers, and waits while the perspiration grows on his skin. Finally she breaks from her trance and meets him halfway, peeling the stems out of his sticky palm, watching as he wipes his hands on his jeans, a nervous blush staining his cheeks.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Why?” she questions, rubbing her thumbs up and down the green stems. “Seemed right,” Luke shrugs noncommittally. Belle’s heart drops for some reason; she wanted him to do it out of sincerity, not principality or sympathy. Still, she nods, and puts the flowers into a half empty water bottle left in the floor of the back seat. The bouquet is mangled, probably from being pressed to Luke’s torso for too long or being twirled around in his long, lean fingers too often.

 

When she breathes in this time, it isn’t flowers she smells, but Luke. And it hurts, it’s painful to her chest, tightening like a coil ready to spring the second his mouth unhinges. She wants to reach out and touch him, to brush her thumb over the slow growing stubble coming from his jaw; she wants to say something, to start a conversation.

 

“Belle?” Luke breaks the silence. Her head snaps up and she connects her gaze with his, wondering if he’d notice if she stared long enough to count the shades of sapphire withheld in his pretty irises. “Hmm?” she responds lamely, lost for words. He coughs to clear his throat and shifts in her leather seats to try and face her better, his jeans slipping across the slick material. His Adam’s apple bobs again before he speaks, “Have you told anyone about what happened?”

 

Suddenly her throat goes dry at the mention of her sexual assault, her eyes closing on their own. Although it hurts that he would bring it up so casually, Belle figures he’s going to encourage her to talk to some kind of counselor or law enforcement about it so the nasty guy can be brought down and she can find some solace in his arrest.

 

“No,” she shakes her head as her voice comes as a cracked whisper. “I haven’t.”

 

Luke releases a sigh of relief, “Good.”

 

If her heart didn’t drop when he handed her the flowers, it’s dropped all the way down to her ankles at hearing his voice. “Excuse me?” Belle asks indignantly, cocking her head sideways slightly. “I just want you to make sure that you know you can’t tell anyone about what you saw,” he says with his hands twisted together in his lap. “You can’t tell people about where you saw that guy and you can’t tell them about me.”

 

“Get out.”

 

“What?” He looks surprised; eyes wide and jaw unhinged just a bit. Her teeth grind together and she unlocks the doors, her blood boiling as his words repeat in her mind. “Get out,” she repeats, her voice low and slow. He scoffs, “Excuse _me_?”

 

“I said get out of my car.” Her voice is startlingly calm and even. It scares Luke to some degree; and if she’s honest with herself, it scares Belle. Luke’s eyes turn to wide pools of blue as he tries to conjure words. He’d look cute to her if she weren’t so blindingly furious with the beautiful blonde in her passenger seat.

 

“You came out here to make sure your secret is safe,” she hisses between her teeth as she slowly brings her eyes up to meet his. “You didn’t come out here to reassure me that my mental health is okay, not to make sure I’m not still feeling meaty hands all over my body; not to make sure that I’m not losing my mind; not to make sure that I have gotten one good night’s rest.”

 

She swallows, feeling the tears tracking in the backs of her eyelids. “Newsflash, pal: your secret is safe with me.” Two hearts are on the floor, now. Luke’s throat is dry and his chest is depressed with every word she throws at him, cool and calm and straight as an arrow.

 

“Now get out.”

 

Luke’s mouth moves like he’s trying to speak, but Belle forces her arm outwards so she opens his door for him. Leaning across the console, her nose could brush his if she moved just the right way, and her breath is mingled with his.

 

“I said: _get out_.”

 

Now she’s crying and for some reason Luke has this weird incentive inside of him that tells him to reach out and brush the pads of his thumbs over her tear stained cheeks. His heart aches when it shouldn’t and his brain is yelling at him to hold her to his chest and let her cry into his ripped shirt. He should want to run from her car and never look back but he doesn’t.

 

As Belle settles back in her seat and her shoulders begin shaking with pent up sobs, she whimpers, “Just get out.” Luke’s heart breaks inside of him, he can feel each shard falling away piece by piece. Her voice is so wrecked and her cheeks are so red and her breathing is so uneven it shakes him in his seat.

 

He doesn’t budge and he’s just staring down at his hands and all Belle can feel is the fury billowing up in her throat. “Don’t you hear me?” she grunts, trying not to sound weak and whiney.

 

His eyes lift up and she feels her blood turn to ice as his irises meet hers and his arm reaches out to brush over her wrist as he pulls on the car handle, successfully shutting the door. Luke’s fingers dance over the tops of her hands as he gently wraps her hand up in his and brings it away from the door.

 

“Sunshine,” Luke calls softly, his eyes earnest, “I’m not going anywhere.”

 

Immediately Belle yanks her hand away from his grasp and brings her palms to her face in order to cover herself as her cheeks turn red from both humiliation and embarrassment. “I don’t see why you won’t leave me alone like I did for you, Luke Hemmings!” She swears she sees a glint of a smile on his face from between the spaces of her fingers; she wonders if it’s because she called him by his full name. “It isn’t like you actually care at all what I think or feel or am,” she wishes she could hold back a sniffle, but she can’t. Moisture is gathering on the inside of her palm from her sniveling and her tears and her heated, quick breathing and Belle wishes she could pull her hands from her face but she can’t. “You only care about yourself you-you—you selfish meanie!”

 

Luke swallows audibly, “You’re mad at me.”

 

Her hands are taken from her face and she slams them on the steering wheel as she glances over at him incredulously, “Wow, you really _are_ a genius! Here I thought all you had in your brain was a bunch of rude comebacks and snide remarks!”

 

His lips turn upward just a tad more at her immature insult, and it makes Belle’s chest cave. Why do all attractive boys have to be such heart breakers? Luke reaches out, trying to touch her, grab her wrist gently.

 

But suddenly he isn’t Luke.

 

He’s Frank.

 

Meaty hands, stinking breath, yellowed teeth, sunken eyes, thinned hair, malice-filled irises. He smells, he’s an oaf, he wants to hurt her. Belle curls away from Luke, throwing her hands up with a whimper. “You shouldn’t be here,” he says lowly, dark lips curling as a sneer lights up his grimy face. A flinch shudders through her body as her neck snaps sideways. Her eyes squeeze shut and reflexively her knees curl into her chest.

 

“Belle? Belle, it’s me.”

 

“NO!” she cries out, feeling the car fill with the odor spilling from Frank’s body. Her entire side is pressed into the door of the car, wondering if maybe she can just melt through the cracks and slip away things might be okay. Luke sighs and through the corner of her eye, Belle sees him tearing his fingers through his hair. She doesn’t like being afraid, it makes her feel out of control.

 

“This is all my fault,” she hears him mumble.

 

 _Please don’t say that,_ she silently begs him, feeling her heart shatter into pieces. _Please don’t blame my problems on yourself. This isn’t your fault, it’s mine. All mine. I did this, me. I went into the camp, I was snooping on you. This is my fault. Frank came onto me because I wasn’t where I was supposed to be, not because of you. Please. Please. My fault._

She wipes her face with the heels of her trembling palms, sucking in a shuddering breath. “I-I’m leaving,” she stammers, “I’m going s-somewhere else.”

 

Luke flashes her a concerned look, his neck craning as his pale eyes narrow. “Where to, sunshine?” Belle shakes her head and reaches down for the gear shift, “It d-doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter and you don’t care.” Luke exhales loudly and she’s afraid she’s upset him and he’s going to strike against her, but instead he just sits still. “I _do_ care.”

 

Even though her heart flutters just slightly, she pushes down the feeling as some kind of stomach sickness and her foot comes down on the break as her hand rests on the shift. “Get out,” she shakes her head.

 

He doesn’t move and she takes it as a cue to start moving, hoping that he’ll demand to get out and just _maybe_ he’ll leave her alone with the negatively intoxicating thoughts buzzing in her head. Her chest is tight, her face is flushed, her palms sweaty. Luke buckles up as she begins to pull out of the parking space and only then does she notice how badly her body is shaking.

 

She doesn’t know where she’s going. But honestly?

 

She doesn’t care.

 

After a few minutes of driving, she pulls up to a place she didn’t even know she was going. Luke cranes his neck upward so he can see better and a puzzled expression pulls on his features. “Why here?” he asks, looking over at her as she settles down in the driver’s seat.

 

“I dunno,” she exhales. “It just feels right.”  


	6. 0.5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warning: snogging is mentioned. repeatedly.   
> aka belle really wants to learn how to kiss

**_4:27 p.m._ **

**_Wednesday, September 3 rd, 2014_ **

****

The fences are all locked up tight, but that never stopped the two of them before in years prior to this, and it sure isn’t going to stop her now. Belle jogs a few fence links down to where it becomes shorter and loops her fingers around the chain metal.

 

“Belle,” Luke warns, his eyes enlarging. “Sunshine, that’s not safe…”

 

She hoists her legs up the fence, climbing the eight feet it takes before swinging her legs so she’s straddling the fence and then she jumps down, letting out an _“Oof!”_ on her way down. “Sunshine,” she hears muttered from behind her as she brushes off her legs. Belle doesn’t turn around, she doesn’t pay him any mind.

 

The sun feels so out of place with her feelings so down in the darkness, but the warmth it gives off feels good. It warms her even though she is shivering on the inside. Belle walks onto the clay mound in the center of the field, her feet scuffling her feet along as she goes towards it. Behind her, there’s a thud and a grunt, and when she looks over her shoulder, her dark locks whipping in the sudden burst of wind, she sees Luke crouched from hopping over the fence. His eyes are trained in on her, some little sliver of fear held within the pretty turquoise of his irises. It’s as if he’s silently begging her to stop and talk to him and reassure him that they’re safe, that it’s okay.

 

Instead of speaking, Belle walks over to the mound where the white rubber is placed and sits down. It doesn’t matter that she’s going to have orange dirt staining her pants, she just wants to feel okay again and she thinks this is the only place that will give her that solace. For a moment she sits with her arms wrapped around her legs as she hugs them to her chest, but then she lays down in the grass, her eyes closed as she sprawls out, letting her skin soak up the sunshine. When she breathes, Belle hopes that maybe she can take in the good, clean air that is full of memories of this ballpark and flush out the bad air with memories of Frank and his attempt at violating her.

 

_In with the good, out with the bad. In with the good, out with the bad. In with the good, out with the bad._

“Why here?” Luke asks again, breaking her from her meditative thoughts. When she opens her eyes, ready to tell him again to leave her alone, she’s surprised to see that Luke is standing over her, his frame appearing even taller than usual at her vantage point. Belle swallows, “It helps me think.”

 

 _It lets me remember all the good times instead of all the bad things that have been happening for the past few years,_ she thinks to herself, half-wishing she could admit it to him aloud. It would certainly lighten the boulder pressing against her chest, weighing her down and causing it hard to suck in breath after breath.

 

Luke holds his hands out in front of him, motioning to the ground around his feet and her body. “Mind if I join you?” he asks, a light smirk growing on his full lips. “I don’t own the grass,” Belle states plainly, her eyes and tone flat as she glances up at him.

 

He lowers himself onto the grass and crosses his legs, fiddling with the strands of grass which over the years have become overgrown. Belle tries her hardest to tune out the fact that he’s here, and it’s difficult despite the fact that he’s not hardly making any noise other than the little ripping noises of grass blades from the ground. _He shouldn’t be here,_ she thinks, _He hurt me._

And yet she finds it satisfying to be near him.

 

In some way, Luke makes her feel alive, and she hasn’t felt that way in a very, very long time. And she craves that.

 

“Sunshine,” Luke says lowly, a blade of grass twirled around his long index finger. “You come here often?” She shrugs, her rock walls building themselves higher with every word he speaks. “None of your business,” Belle answers, her lower lip pulled into her mouth. Luke tries to contain the smirk, but he can’t, and as he looks down at the grass below him, he chuckles to himself sarcastically, “Using my words against me, hmm?”

 

“Precisely.”

 

After that, she doesn’t speak. There isn’t really any need to. If she did talk with him, she assumes it would most likely end in some fiery debate about how Luke is a meanie head or about Belle snooping around in his private life or… _the possibilities are endless._ She lays her palms flat out against the grass, fingertips stumbling over the blades as she attempts to think of breathing and making her blood continue to flow through her veins or focusing on how often she needs to blink.

 

Anything to keep her mind off the silent boy with his head bent beside her. Even though her thoughts are pointless, she thinks that if she forces herself to focus on her body, she will forget all about Luke sitting just mere inches away. Belle forces her eyes closed and tries to find patterns in the black space behind her eyelids.

 

_Then she feels it._

Luke’s fingertips brush over the top of her hand, up with the way her veins flow to her knuckles, where he trails over each bump delicately as if he touches her too harshly, she’ll bruise. Belle’s heartbeat quickens, she no longer has to think about her blood flow now, it’s pumping all on it’s own, at it’s own rate. Now she has to worry about controlling her breathing from becoming too labored.

 

 _What are you doing?_ She feels as if she should split open her eyelids and glare at him. She feels as if she should pull away and tell him not to touch her because she’s mad at him for being such a cold-hearted jerk.

 

But she can’t bring herself to even flinch for worry that the feeling of his rough finger pads simply stroking against her hand will disappear.

 

She’s being selfish, and she knows it. He doesn’t _want_ to touch her, she thinks, and when she just barely glances at him out of the slits in her eyes, she notices that his eyes are glazed over and he doesn’t even look like he’s on the same planet as she is right now. Luke Hemmings’ brain is on autopilot and he’s only touching her because he isn’t thinking.

 

Why else would he flinch every other time she tries to touch him if he didn’t _want_ her to touch him?

 

Luke scoots marginally closer to her, his knee pressed to her rib cage. Then he proceeds to take her hand and pull it into his lap, spreading her fingers across his thigh as he continues traipsing his fingertips absentmindedly over her digits. His eyes are still vacant as Belle looks up at them, and they seem more gray than blue now; he’s staring at the other side of the ballpark.

 

When he flips her hand over, her breathing hitches and she curses herself as she watches him flinch. _Why is this happening to me?_ Belle swallows deeply and watches as a frown turns Luke’s lips downward. _He’ll never like me, not platonically as a friend and **definitely** not in a romantic way. He wouldn’t be into me, I’m a baby. An innocent little baby. Luke is like a…Well, I don’t really know what he’s like. But I’ve never wanted someone like him in the past. So why do I—_

She stops herself there, not even wanting to entertain the ideas beginning to mull around in her head.

 

Luke’s lengthy fingers trail from the crease of her elbow, tracing her bluish veins, down to the bone of her wrist, which he circles slowly. Gently he drifts the pad of his fingertip up her pinky finger and begins running up and down each finger until he reaches her thumb. By now, Belle is holding her breath, feeling as if when she makes the smallest of sounds, he’ll backtrack and stop touching her. She so badly wants him to touch her.

 

He begins pulling on her thumb, bending it back and forth at the joint, his eyes still glazed over as he looks off into space. His brow is creased just slightly as it looks like Luke starts thinking about something, his mouth pulled down in a frown before he licks his lips. As his forehead turns to wrinkles, Luke pulls her thumb back too far and Belle can’t help but wince at the sudden motion.

 

Luke hesitates.

 

His eyes flit down to where he’s holding her hand and his Adam’s apple bobs considerably. “S-Sorry,” he stutters out as he yanks his hand back quickly as if she’s burning him by touching him. Luke wipes his palm atop his crossed thighs as Belle begins inwardly cursing herself for moving in the slightest; the butterflies in her tummy seem to still at the loss of his touch.

 

 _I knew he didn’t want to touch me,_ Belle scolds herself, _He’s not being so abrasive right now and **as soon** as the sun sets and rises tomorrow, he won’t be acting like he wants to have anything to do with me – just like he’s been from the beginning. Luke will shove me as far as physically possible and…_

 

She sighs, “No, it’s okay.” Belle reaches out and grabs his hand, pulling it in front of her face even as she lays down, shading the sun from her eyes with his large-spread palm. Her eyes narrow as she inspects the little cuts and scrapes and scars and she listens to his uneven breathing and feels his pulse sputtering beneath her thumb as she holds it to his wrist. She wishes it weren’t so erratic, she feels as if she’s forcing him into touching her or letting her touch him.

 

Belle runs her nail over his scars gently, wondering what could cause them. Most are small, little white wisps against his otherwise smooth and tanned skin. There’s a rather large one between his first and middle knuckles, it’s raised and slightly pink; it must still be healing.

 

Looking up at Luke, she gazes at his eyes that are fluttered shut, his lower lip pulled between his teeth as he breathes rather unevenly. She wants to ask him about the scars, perhaps pull a unique story from him. Maybe one that will make him laugh or smile at least; she likes his pretty teeth and his lip ring when he smiles. Luke has another scar over his eyebrow and for some reason Belle wonders what it would feel like to run her lips and fingers over the raised area.

 

With a shake of her head, she returns to her inspection, trying to shake the curiosities from her mind.

 

She notices that he has rather wide hands, but they’re somewhat chubby. _Cute,_ Belle thinks with a grin on her lips. Flipping his hand over so she can see the palm, she begins tracing the small lines within like a roadmap. Luke has soft hands, she thinks, they’re lovely and would be nice to hold between the spaces her own fingers create. Some part of her yearns to lace their fingers together, but she’s frightened of what he would do in return.

 

Instead of threading their fingers, Belle sets his hand back in his own lap and stands up, brushing off her bum as she looks down at him. “Wanna get a milkshake?” she asks, holding out her hand for him to take in the high hopes that he does. Luke’s eyes spring open, his azul irises bright and wide. “Wh-What?” he responds, his face flushed pink. She clenches her fingers together, trying to create the sensation of what his hand would feel like in hers as she forces a smile, “Milkshake, do you want to get one? W-With me, of course. I-I would drive.”

 

Luke smirks as his eyes fall to the clay covered ground and Belle feels her insides turn to mush. As soon as his façade of tough-and-quiet fades, it comes back and his eyes are steel as he faces her again. “I don’t care,” he shrugs, his broad shoulders drawing her attention, “Whatever.”

 

She sighs, “Is there dirt on my pants?” Belle turns so her back is facing him, waiting patiently for his reply. For a moment they’re both silent, and then she turns her head to look at him over her shoulder. “Luke?”

 

“N-No,” he says with a strangled noise following as his voice cracks. “Nothing there.” She turns around with a sigh, “Shall we, then?” Luke shrugs, sticking his hands as deep into his pockets as they’ll go. Belle doesn’t take a second look as she starts towards the fence again, trying to shake the weird feeling that’s sitting on her shoulders. It’s easier for her to jump the fence this time, and Luke doesn’t hesitate to follow her.

 

**_5:11 p.m._ **

****

“What do you get?”

 

Luke’s eyes are wide as he stares at the Sonic menu board to his right out the window. “Luke?” she presses her hand to his bicep and he flinches, shaking his head. “Y-Yeah, sorry, what?” he asks, slowly dragging his attention away from the menu and to connect their gazes. “What do you get?” she repeats with a slight giggle. Belle notices that the corner of his lip pulls up at the sound of her laughter but he quickly lets it fade as he pulls his lower lip into his mouth.

 

“I don’t,” he answers bluntly, “I’ve never had a milkshake from here before.”

 

Belle openly gapes at him, her jaw dropped, “You’ve what?!”

 

He casts her a blank look, “You know where I live, Belle Sinclair.”

 

As she slides further down in her leather seats, Belle feels the cloud of guilt gather over her, threatening to spill over any time soon based on the little slips and slides she’s been making with trying to befriend Luke Hemmings. She wants to run away, she wants to be able to say something right for _once_ in her life.

 

“The turtle is good,” she mumbles lamely. “If you like caramel and nuts.”

 

He nods, looking down at his hands as he spreads out his fingers in his lap, palm-side up, “I’ll get that then.” As she presses the red button and waits for the server to come in on the line, she watches as he stares at his hands with a wistful look in his eyes. He runs his fingertips of his right hand over the digits of his left, his head cocked to the side and she wonders if maybe he’s trying to recreate the feeling of her hands from just earlier.

 

“Ma’am?”

 

Belle shakes herself out of her daze and turns her attention to the woman through the speaker, putting in her order and swiping her card to pay. It’s awkward while they wait, neither willing to say anything but both surveying their hands as if they hold secret galaxies waiting to be discovered.

 

“Hi,” the chipper voice breaks them away from their chilled silence. “Here are your shakes.” The woman leans into the window, handing one and then the other into Belle’s awaiting fingers. “Thank you,” she says in a sigh as she puts them in the cup holders. As she looks up to give the server a tip, she notices that the woman’s eyes are glancing over Luke’s long, lean figure that’s stuffed up in the smaller front seat. “Lucky girl,” she mumbles to Belle, sending her a shifted glance.

 

“Excuse me?” she asks in return, her eyebrows knitted together. The server merely shakes her head and stuffs the tip into her pocket before roller skating away back into the main building. Luke picks up his milkshake and as Belle goes to grab her own, a smirk curls his lips upward on one side. “I bet you can’t tie a knot in that.”

 

Belle raises her eyebrows, “Excuse me?” Luke snickers, shaking his head as he grabs his own cherry off the top of his shake. “I bet you can’t tie a knot in your cherry stem,” he chuckles, a challenging tone lacing his words. “What are we betting?” she asks with a smirk to rival Luke Hemmings’ painted on her full, dark lips. “I dunno,” he shrugs, “I just don’t think you can do it.”

 

“Prepare to be amazed,” Belle rolls her eyes as she pulls the cherry stem away from the fruit, twirling it in her fingertips. She eats the cherry and then pops the stem into her mouth, rolling it into a loop and pulling one end through, grabbing it with her fingertips and taking it from between the bite of her teeth to show it off to Luke.

 

Luke’s eyes are fixated on her lips as she repeats her actions from before, twirling the now-tied stem in her fingers. “I’m amazed,” Luke nods with his lower lip pursed. “You know what it means if you can tie a knot in a cherry stem, right?” Belle glances up at him after tossing the stem into the parking lot, “No, what?” She slips the straw of her milkshake between her lips and waits for his answer.

 

“Maybe I shouldn’t tell you,” Luke’s face turns red as he looks down at his own cherry stem. In a thick voice laden with milkshake, she whines, “No, tell me!” Luke’s eyes avert as he looks out the window, holding the drink in both hands. “It means you’d be a good snog.”

 

“Snog?” she asks, giggling at the way the odd, unfamiliar word rolls off her lips. Luke groans and runs his fingertips through his hair, tugging at the blonde strands falling in his eyes, “ _Kisser_. It means you’d be a good kisser if you can tie a knot in the stem.” Belle’s brow furrows, her confusion evident in her facial expression, “I fail to see how that’s possible, to tie a cherry stem you just have to use your to— _Oh._ ”

 

Luke nods, a bit of an amused look on his face. “I figured everybody knew that.” She shakes her head and shrugs halfway, “I didn’t. Well, I wouldn’t really know anyways, I’ve never kissed with tongue.”

 

 _I’ve never kissed at all,_ she silently tells him, _but I don’t want to seem lame and admit it out loud because everyone I know makes fun of me for still having virgin lips as a senior in high school._

 

With a chuckle, he says, “It’s an art form. If you’re going to French kiss someone, you have to make sure they know how much tongue and teeth and spit to use.” Belle fake gags, “Enough, I’m going to throw up. Spit?! There’s no way that’s enjoyable.” Luke turns his head to smile at her, a genuinely amused grin on his face instead of the brooding stare he normally dishes out. “Frenching is fun,” he chuckles, “it’s different from your average kiss. More intimate, I guess. You just have to find the right person to kiss with.”

 

Belle swallows thickly, “Oh yeah?” Luke nods, sipping on his shake, his eyes facing forward, “Wow, this is really good.”

 

She nods with a little laugh, looking down as she stirs with her straw, “I get these a lot, they’re kind of like a reward for me, I guess. I’m going to be as big as my house one day, I won’t even be able to fit in the door.” Luke rolls his eyes and snorts, licking some whipped cream off the top of his shake, “I doubt that.”

 

Belle pulls off the top of her milkshake, not sure what to say in regard to his comment, and pulls up a glob of whipped cream on the tip of her straw. She slips it between her lips, somewhat confused as to why Luke’s eyes are _still_ focused solely on her mouth. His pink tongue flicks out to wet his lips and it does something inside of her.

 

And for the first time in her life, Belle _really_ wants to find out how nice snogging can be.


End file.
